CHIPS 2020

This chapter discusses trends in the area of low-power, high-performance A/D conversion. Survey data collected over the past thirteen years are examined to show that the conversion energy of ADCs has halved every two years while the speed-resolution product has doubled approximately only every four years. A closer inspection on the impact of technology scaling and developments in ADC design are then presented to explain the observed trends. Next, opportunities in minimalistic and digitally assisted design are reviewed for the most popular converter architectures. Finally, trends in Delta–Sigma ADCs are analyzed in detail.